Painting the Peats – Damian Callan

Painting the Peats is a project that began when artist Damian Callan and his family started helping crofter Chris Spears stack his peats at his peat bank on North Uist. The experience led to a series of ink and wash studies that combined groups of working figures in the Hebridean landscape and were developed into oil paintings.

This week the artist will return to the islands to coincide with the cutting of next year’s peats in order to observe, draw and photograph the crofter at work. There will also be the opportunity to include the crofter’s Saturday shift as the local postman.

During the month of August the artist will be based on the island of Berneray where he will develop this new work in his ‘Painting the Peats’ studio which will be open to visitors who are interested in observing the process and who would like the opportunity to look at work in progress.